


The Path From Fire To Snow

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: ButterOmens, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Scene: The Bookshop Fire (Good Omens), oblique mentions of people coping with PTSD, only sort of not since it's a dream and a flashback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: Crowley has a nightmare.  Aziraphale helps.  Aziraphale's POV for HolyCatsAndRabbits's story "Snow Angel."This story is written for theButterOmens eventon tumblr.  It's similar to a "draw this in your style" chain, but with multimedia.  So the basic idea is that if anyone wants to write their own take on this or extend it or do art or whatever else you can think of, you're encouraged to do so (but please look back at the excellent original story byHolyCatsAndRabbitsto see where the chain started!)Thanks ton0nb1narydemonandacuteangleaziraphalefor coming up with the ButterOmens concept!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 245





	The Path From Fire To Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Snow Angel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080309) by [HolyCatsAndRabbits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits/pseuds/HolyCatsAndRabbits). 



Crowley whimpered.

Aziraphale looked up sharply from his book, which was one of the children’s books that Adam had wished into his shop and featured a sinister but curiously sympathetic shark. Crowley falling asleep on his sofa wasn’t at all strange, and Aziraphale was perfectly happy to spend the night in his silent company. Crowley making noises like that, though—that was different.

He put the book aside and went to the sofa. When Crowley slept, normally his face relaxed, a curious and welcome sight to someone used to his watchful wariness. Now, though, it was drawn as if in pain. “Zrrphale,” he said, and his voice was agonized.

“I’m here, darling.”

“Y’re gone!”

“I’m not gone, I’m  _ right here— _ oh, dear.” A tear was leaking out of Crowley’s eye. Not falling, but catching in the lashes.

Whatever this dream was, it was bad. Aziraphale knew that Crowley hadn’t been sleeping as much as usual in his own apartment, and had hoped that falling asleep on the bookshop’s sofa would ease whatever was bothering him. If anything, it had made it worse.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, then lifted Crowley’s head and shoulders and slid himself onto the sofa, taking the unconscious demon half into his lap. Whatever the dream was about—

He might see something he didn’t want to see. Worse, he might see something that Crowley didn’t want him to see. But he also couldn’t leave Crowley in pain. The tear broke free of Crowley’s eyelashes and streaked down his face.

“Hold on, love,” Aziraphale murmured to Crowley. “I’m coming.” And he put his hand on Crowley’s brow.

The first thing that hit him was an overwhelming wave of despair. Loss, a staggering loss that seemed like it could burn through all the happy memories of a six thousand year life and turn them all to ash, to regrets, to never-agains. Aziraphale squeezed his own eyes shut, struggling to keep from weeping himself at the onslaught, and the dream came into focus. Roaring sheets of fire. The noise pressed in on him from all sides, as unbearable as the heat, and under it, images flickered. Himself, afraid, as the flames engulfed him. Himself, resigned, closing his eyes in despair. Himself,  _ alone, _ and that was the common theme.  _ I was too late, _ Crowley’s thoughts screamed.  _ I didn’t come. Unforgivable. Unforgivable. I let him die alone. _

The shape of the inferno around them was familiar, Aziraphale realized. Tables. His desk, his computer. All his precious books, so many of the things he loved, up in smoke.

It felt like a punch in the stomach, actually being here. Discorporation hadn’t been pleasant—Aziraphale had felt the matter of his body wrenched apart by the forces drawing him up to Heaven—but at least he hadn’t had to see  _ this . . . _

No. Worry about that later. The important thing was Crowley.

The opposite of fire, Aziraphale thought. The opposite of  _ this. _ Gentle, soft, quiet.

He spread his wings, in the real world as well as in the dream world, and started to dream of snow.

It took a moment, he thought, before Crowley noticed. Soft, drifting flakes, touching down and quenching the flames where they landed, muting the roaring of the fire, like whispers. Aziraphale walked slowly through the bookshop, frost blooming under his feet, and he realized as he went that he was dressed as he had been in Eden. Only, not quite. Here, he glittered. His wings were edged with the brilliance of frost particles, and so was his robe.

Dreams didn’t always do what you expected them to. As he approached Crowley, he thought his dream-body shone brighter. Cool white light, an antidote to the rapacious glow of the fire.

The fire was only on a few surfaces now, struggling to hold on. Aziraphale’s wings moved very slightly, and snowflakes drifted to those spots.

Crowley was staring at him.

Crowley didn’t have his glasses on, and the pain in his eyes was staggering. “Did I crack, finally?” he said unsteadily. “My nightmares can’t even hold together anymore?” He swallowed. “Guess I don’t care, if you’re in this dream now.”

Aziraphale’s heart broke a little. “Let’s not stay here, my dear,” he said, as soothingly as he could manage. “Care for a walk in the park?” If they stayed here, Crowley’s nightmare—Crowley’s  _ memory— _ might try to reassert itself. Aziraphale didn’t want to fight the nightmare head-on. It was too fine a line between fighting the dream and fighting the person who was having it. He had learned that, doing this for humans. Changing was better than battle.

Crowley took his hand in the dream, skin too hot. Aziraphale slipped his real world hand into Crowley’s and took them to the park, snow falling at dusk, light cool and blue. More difficult than he made it look, because the burning bookshop wanted to cling to them—an evil ghost, a ghastly doppelganger of the bookshop-as-it-was. What was it doing to Crowley, Aziraphale wondered, to have that vision superimposed on top of the intact bookshop? Were their quiet evenings ever overshadowed by the crackling of flames? He would have to ask. See if there was anything he could do about it. But later.

“Oh, you look better already,” Aziraphale said, and it was true. The pain in Crowley’s eyes was fading, just a little. Aziraphale didn’t like how  _ lost _ he looked, but it was better than agony. “Here, darling, let me see to you.” Clothes, that would make Crowley feel better. Unburnt clothes. Fresh clothes.

If, perhaps, Aziraphale slipped in a scrap of his tartan where Crowley wouldn’t pay attention to it, that was nobody’s business but his. They walked.

Aziraphale could feel when Crowley began to calm, the snowflakes swirling around the two of them. “Darling,” he said finally, “do you think you’re ready to wake up, now?”

Instant rejection. Instant fear. Aziraphale could feel the raw dread. “I’m not leaving,” Crowley said. “If you’re here, I’m not leaving. I’m going to sleep for the next century.”

“Oh, I’d rather you didn’t, my dear,” Aziraphale said lightly, to cover up his worry. “I’d miss you terribly.” In Crowley’s mind, the fire was the reality. The fire was the reality, maybe the  _ only _ reality, permanent and searing and scarring, and the snow was the dream. A dream within a dream. How to get him back to the real world without crossing through that hideous inferno?

But Crowley was looking at him, frightened and a little bit awed. “Aziraphale? Are you— _ actually here? _ In my dream?”

“For the moment, yes. But I’m afraid I need to open the shop shortly, so—”

_ “Don’t leave.” _ In the real world as well as the dream world, Crowley’s hand tightened convulsively around Aziraphale’s.

_ That. _ That might be something. Something that Aziraphale could use to anchor him. “Let’s try something. Can you feel me holding your hand?”

“Yeah.” It sounded small, doubtful. As if Crowley was already anticipating Aziraphale leaving.

“All right. Now do something for me, dear. Let go.”

Crowley didn’t move. Aziraphale stood still, trying to let hope and confidence show on his face.

Crowley untangled his fingers slowly, as if he thought letting go would turn the snowflakes to flames around him. Aziraphale fixed the snow and the frost very firmly in his mind. Crowley’s distress could take control of the dream, if he let it. It was imperative that he not let it.

The look in Crowley’s eyes said,  _ now what? _ and under that, heartbroken,  _ is this where you leave me? _ Aziraphale tightened his grip in the real world. “Now,” he said gently, “can you still feel me there?”

“I—” Crowley looked down, studying his hand as if it were a new thing.

“I’m holding your hand in the waking world,” Aziraphale explained.  _ And I will never leave you. _ “I know you only trust one person, Crowley, but it’s me. I won’t lead you astray. Wake up into my arms, darling. Please.”

Crowley stared at him a moment more, all doubt and dread and the roaring horror of the bookshop inferno. And then the snowscape dissolved around them both as Crowley’s eyelids flickered.

Aziraphale opened his eyes and blinked several times, orienting himself to the waking, human world and fighting the lingering double vision. In his lap, Crowley stirred.

“Welcome back,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley’s breath shuddered out of him. Aziraphale rubbed him between the shoulderblades, between where his wings were and weren’t, soothing him.

“Guess I was the one to leave this time,” Crowley said finally. It came out raw, exhausted.

Aziraphale kissed him. Gently, soothingly, like snowflakes—not a passionate kiss, there were other times for those, but a kiss on the forehead to say,  _ I’m here. _ “Doesn’t matter, darling. Wherever you are, I’ll come to you.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Crowley said. “When did you learn to do that?”

“During the Great War.” Aziraphale kept making circles on Crowley’s back. “And after. There were so many humans—it was as if the trench had become the only reality to them, as if the waking world was more dreamlike than the dreams of being back there. I would teach them—I would work with a human night after night, sometimes, leading them from Ypres or Verdun to the Lake District or whatever little meadow said  _ peace _ in their mind. Eventually the path would be so well-worn in their mind that they could follow it, quite literally in their sleep.” He smiled slightly. “They never knew that the angel in their dreams was real. But I think some of them suspected.”

Crowley was silent for a long moment.

“I’m sorry I intruded,” Aziraphale said. “I—can’t quite bring myself to say  _ I shouldn’t have, _ because you were so obviously in pain. I felt as if it were an emergency.” Crowley in any sort of pain was an emergency.

“You make it sound like—” Crowley swallowed. “You make it sound like I’m going to have to do this again. Not—I mean, walking with you in a dream park, I would happily do that all day, but the bit that came before.”

“You’ve had that nightmare before,” Aziraphale said. It wasn’t a question. “I think you’ll probably have it again. These things—I learned, in the Great War, that these things don’t seem to resolve themselves in a single blaze of realization. It’s—” He fell back on the metaphor he had used before. “It’s a path. You have to walk it. Wear it into being.” He bent again, and kissed Crowley on the forehead. “You do  _ not _ have to walk it alone.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Scrap of His Tartan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23141548) by [Cassandraic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassandraic/pseuds/Cassandraic)




End file.
